Archive for "Food and Drink"
The Edgewater Hotel
Posted on July 14, 2025 by Ching under Family, Food and Drink, Travel.
Brian and I had an opportunity to stay at this cute boutique hotel on the water the night before embarkation, the Edgewater. Our room was lovely and we really enjoyed our stay.
I really wanted to take the bear with me but didn’t for a couple of reasons: we didn’t really want to spend the money and we didn’t leave room for much else in our suitcases. That bear was really cute, though!
Everyone in our group pretty much stayed on the same floor of the hotel. Brian’s parents had a room with a balcony facing the pier same as ours. This is the view of our balcony from their room.
This is the view of their balcony from our room. They had a bigger room and better balcony as you can see.
Our hotel is located next to Pier 66 which is the Norwegian Cruise Lines cruise port. There was actually an Oceania ship there on Thursday morning, our embarkation day. I had to take a pic, naturally.
The hotel is home to Six Seven, a very nice restaurant with amazing views of the water.
Brian and I had breakfast with his parents there on embarkation day.
Lorin and Sandy, who are part of our travel group, had breakfast there the same morning at a separate table.
Here are some pictures of our food…
This was hands down the best crab cakes benedict I’d ever eaten. I had one at Another Broken Egg about a week before we left which I thought was pretty good and it didn’t hold a candle to this one.
I could not believe the huge chunks of crab meat that they gave me.
I think everyone else enjoyed their meals also but mine was the best for sure. It was sooo good!
My hot chocolate was also very good.
Their table decor consisted of single flower in a vase which was a nice touch but Brian and I liked that they served homemade preserves in cute little jars.
Even the honey came that way.
All in all we had a lovely stay. We really enjoyed the hotel and would stay there again next time we’re in the area. What about you all? What hotels do you recommend in Seattle?
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FioRito Lunch
Posted on May 16, 2025 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Posting pictures of our last lunch at FioRito in honor of Chef Jason Rickard’s new Mediterranean restaurant that will be opening soon at TapNPaddles.
I highly recommend checking out Fio Rito if you’ve never been because the food is just fabulous. We are super excited for Raha Mediterranean to open. We’ve tried some of the food at TapNPaddles and it’s fantastic so looking forward trying the rest of the dishes that Jason comes up with. They’ll be opening in a couple of weeks so check back soon for a post immediately following our first visit to the restaurant. Until then, have a fabulous weekend friends!
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Tacos TJ 664
Posted on May 16, 2025 by Ching under Food and Drink.
Brian and I found a new favorite taco place!
This mangoneada is as delicious as it is pretty.
Tacos galore!
I think next time we go, we are going to have to order something else from the menu besides tacos because they actually have a bunch of other tasty things. It’s just hard to deviate from the normal. Might have to hit Tacos TJ this weekend. Until then, let us know your favorite things to get there in the comments. Would love some ideas. Thanks!
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Trading Points for Gift Cards
Posted on May 12, 2025 by Ching under Food and Drink, Free Stuff.
Those who know me are fully aware that I am neurotic about rewards points. Lately I have been so obsessed with Fetch that I’m actually letting it dictate where I eat lunch. It also helps that I’ve had some pretty good restaurant offers recently.
I had this offer from McAlister’s Deli which led Brian and I to try all the McAlister’s locations in the Wichita area. We even went to the one in Derby, which was our least favorite. Not only was it the smallest location but the service was horrendous. But either way, we got what I came for, which was Fetch points.
The one positive thing that came out of the adventure was that it allowed Brian to rediscover that he actually really likes the ham and cheese sandwich at McAlister’s. He had written McAlister’s off due to his own set of bad experiences but now we’re actually open to eating there again. We’re just not going to go to the Derby location.
Amazingly, out of the three locations we visited — Maple and Ridge (West Wichita), Greenwich (East Wichita), and Derbt (South of Wichita) — the location that impressed me the most with their efficiency and attentive service was the West location which is the location that was responsible for making Brian hate McAlister’s to begin with; however, that was back when he worked for Edward Jones so it had been a few years. Maybe they have new managers and new employees there and that has made all the difference. They were the best out of the three locations. The only thing I don’t like about the West location is that parking in that strip mall is a complete mess. Brian said he used to watch cars crash into one another all the time in that parking lot when he worked for EJ and they had their office in that same strip mall. So I guess that part hasn’t changed. LOL.
The latest Fetch promotion I’m chasing is the Il Vicino 30 points per $1 spent offer. It didn’t take much to convince us to go though because we really like Il Vicino and we would eat there anyway. With or without getting bribed with Fetch points.
It was beautiful yesterday so we ate outside on their patio. This was at the Bradley Fair location. Brian and I split a caesar salad and a pizza this time instead of our usual vespa (our most favorite thing to get there).
I like it when we can agree on food to split because, not only does it save us money, but it also saves us from having to take home a bunch of leftovers.
Here’s what the vespa looks like. We had gotten it just a few days prior when we had lunch with our friend (my coworker and coffee/lunch buddy) Chris Townley at the College Hill location.
This is half because we always split the vespa when we order it.
As per usual, we also split a caesar salad on that visit. If I were there by myself and couldn’t split with anyone, I would have gotten the lunch special which gets you a small salad of your choice (probably caesar for me), small pizza, and drink for about $16. It’s an excellent deal. You can’t beat it.
However, the best deal is that all of these points I’m earning from my Fetch receipts get turned into Amazon gift cards once I have enough of them. You can choose gift cards from a variety of stores or restaurants but I always just get Amazon because Brian and I order almost everything from there. If you’re not already a Fetch user, I highly recommend it. You can turn basically anything you do into gift cards with Fetch. Download Fetch with this link or use code BKNPBF to get a bonus when you submit your first receipt. Happy Fetching!
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Itzcali Tapas & Tequila Revisited
Posted on April 25, 2025 by Ching under Food and Drink.
The first time I tried Itzcali Tapas & Tequila, I really didn’t like it. Fast forward to one year later and I’m kind of changing my tune.
Chris Townley and I ate there for lunch a couple of months ago. This time I decided to try their horchata, which was super creamy and really good. It pretty much set the tone for the meal.
I ordered the elote and it was also excellent.
Normally you would have birria as a taco but Itzcali offers it in different forms so Chris and I had it two different ways that day. I had the birria soup and Chris had the birria flatbread pizza.
My birria soup was delicious. This lunch is truly what changed my feelings about Itzcali. So, when Chris suggested we have lunch there again a few weeks ago. I was like, sure. I really liked it the last time — thinking of our most recent visit and not the first one (which I didn’t really like).
On this next visit, I opted for the cucumber aqua fresca. It was amazing. It’s now my most favorite drink to get there.
I had the bowl with pork al pastor (above) for lunch. The presentation was 100x better than the first bowl I got there. Chris had a quesadilla (below) but I cannot remember what meat he chose. He said it was good, though.
Anyway, I like Itzcali so much now that I actually didn’t mind eating there twice in the same week. The same week that Chris and I had lunch there, I met our friends Grant and Susie Ternes and Brian there for lunch too. Chris and I went on Tuesday and I was back again on Friday. Grant and Susie had been there before but it was Brian’s first time.
Here’s a picture of the restaurant interior, which is interesting and unique. There’s no other place that looks like this in Wichita.
This was the day of Brian’s follow up with Dr. Chris Dakhil, when we found out the results of his PET scan. Everything looked good.
I had to get my favorite drink!
Susie went for something stronger.
The rest of the pics that follow are pictures of our lunch.
We don’t really have a lot of tapas places here in Wichita so I am grateful to have found one I like. I feel like this place struggled in the beginning but it looks like they’re finally finding their groove. It’s now on my permanent rotation. Let me know if you have other tapas places you like that we should check out.
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